The Bling Ring Review
Sofia Coppola's Bling Ring is a triumph in social commentary, a film bursting at the seams with intelligence, wit and self consciousness. Based on a true story the film revolves around the infamous Bling Ring, a group of wannabe celebrities living in LA who steal from the properties of the rich and famous for a year without being caught.
The film's opening sequence is a vision of whats to come, with a distorted Sleigh Bells track pounding over a sequence of theft, designer clothes and celebrities being chased by paparazzi, giving a great first impression. From here we meet the various characters, each displaying a significant lack of soul or purpose, and instead coming across as shallow and vain, and each with an obsession with fame. The plot is relatively thin here, with little in the way of character development or heart, instead opting for a soulless art house vibe. The film itself is an exploration of celebrity obsession, and one which favours deep commentary over heart or character development. In this regard it is similar to the recent Spring Breakers, in that both feature young characters taking drugs, partying and causing mayhem in a stylised and repetitive manner. The film really is repetitive, with scenes of the group of kids clubbing, snorting cocaine and stealing taking up the majority of the film, arguably a statement on the world in which the film depicts. Fuelling these moments of excess is a blaring soundtrack of EDM and Hip-Hop, which ties into the film excellently, particularly during one car scene (I won't spoil). By the end of the film, its clear that Coppola is providing a deep and meaningful opinion piece on how she sees the world of Hollywood and celebrity culture. In this aspect the film succeeds immensely, with Coppola's witty script and astonishing visuals shedding light on the aspirations of today's youth and providing just enough plot to make the film watchable.
In terms of performances, Emma Watson is a clear standout. Her character is one of the funniest in the film, and provides some great parodic humour through her airhead attitude. It is surprising to see Watson in such a different role from her usual English rose approach, and proves that she does have a brilliant talent, even if she does still overcompensate with her eyebrows and forehead occasionally. Katie Chang also provides a solid performance as the empty and emotionless ring leader Rebecca. Her disregard for anything other than being famous and meeting her idol Lindsay Lohan is both amusing and sickening, depicting what Coppola sees as a major problem within American society. Apart from the two standouts, the rest of the cast are fine, but aren't as interesting as Watson and Chang's characters, leaving them little to work with.
The Bling Ring is aesthetically pleasing too, Coppola injects her ability to create a mood into the film, something that Lost In Translation did perfectly, to create a disturbing dystopia of drugs, money, guns and possession that reflects today's celebrity culture. There are a couple of fantastic visual scenes within the piece, one is an extremely slow zoom shot as the group rob a glass mansion, providing one continuous, silent scene of an entire robbery. The other is a short scene in which the male character Marc is dancing in his room to 'Drop it Low' while he dresses in various designer garments, all of this is shot through the webcam on his laptop. The scene struck me in that displays the lack of direction in these kids lives, while it may seem that they are living the celebrity lifestyle, in reality they are doing nothing but pretending. Another brilliant technical aspect of the film is the soundtrack, as mentioned before its a mixture of contemporary EDM and Hip-Hop which fits the film perfectly, Azealia Banks, Sleigh Bells and Ester Dean all feature, and lyrically provide a fitting soundtrack to the drugs and excess depicted on screen.
This commentary on celebrity culture, obsession, fame and excess is fantastic, if at times hard to watch. It's flaws are plain to see, but at the same time fit with the soulless and shallow themes of the piece. Emma Watson's amusing performance is perhaps the saving grace of the film, giving life to an otherwise endless montage of celebrity and youth culture, and is worth the price of admission alone. If you can take a step back from films and watch them analytically, The Bling Ring will provide some great commentary to think about, on the other hand if you're looking for a standard genre film, The Bling Ring will seem like a shallow piece of trash, and you would do better to look elsewhere. Overall a brilliant entry from Sofia Coppola, who again proves her critics wrong by creating an original and well directed piece of cinema.
8/10
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